FIRST THINGS FIRST – DELAYS It has been well over a month since I have laid a finger on the plane. No excuses beyond everyone’s favorite “life got in the way.” Holidays, family vacation, kids out of school, weather. The usual. Perhaps I am also in what many builders experience… Read More »First Garmin Shipment
CUTTING OUT THE STALL WARNING ACCESS HATCH I had previously mentioned my desire to use both AOA and the stall warning system designed by Van’s. I will get to the AOA system soon enough, but today is about the stall warning system. The first step is to line up the… Read More »Stall Warning Access Hatch
REMOVING THE LEFT WING FUEL TANK Now that I got the fuel floats out of my system, it is time to get serious. I had my wife help me uncradle the left wing and lay it out on some old blankets. I have never removed a fuel tank from an… Read More »Left Wing Fuel Tank Removal
PACKING UP THE EMPENNAGE I have come to the realization that space is becoming a real issue. Continuing with the empennage assembly will only result in needing to disassemble it when I move to a hangar. I realize that this will happen no matter what and that I will also… Read More »CHANGING COURSE
EAA SPORTAIR WORKSHOP – SECOND TIME AROUND I went to an EAA SportAir Workshop for electronics and wiring last year (2017) and really enjoyed it. Not only was it definitely worth the money, but I learned an absolute ton in the course. Taking the class really lent me some serious… Read More »EAA SportAir Workshop – Composites
ATTACHED THE VERTICAL STABILIZER Let’s get it out of the way. It’s a terrible pun. I own that. But I also own an airplane that has BOTH the horizontal and vertical stabilizers attached to the tailcone! At the same time! I am pretty excited about this. I am having a… Read More »Tailcone is stabilized
STORING THE ELEVATORS Before I can begin attaching the horizontal stabilizer, I have to disassemble all of my hard work. As predicted. I removed all of the bolts and washers from the elevator horns and labeled them for location. I also removed both elevators and did the same with those… Read More »Putting some junk in the trunk
With both elevators attached and aligned, I match drilled and attached the elevator horns.
BALANCING THE LEFT ELEVATOR The first step today was removing the left elevator. Initially I thought this would be rather frustrating having just attached it in my previous session, but it came off easily. I’m certain I will do this at least a few more times. I moved the set… Read More »Mounted both elevators
I mounted the left elevator to the HS for the first time and learned some important lessons along the way about alignment and clearance.